Pachyderm Paternalism

Doubtless not entirely for tax purposes, the present Mistress Johnson has a senior communications role in the Aspinall Foundation, a conservation charity set up by a professional gambler and chum of the famously uxorious Seventh Earl of Lucan. Having carried out informal discussions, after the cosily statesmanlike fashion of Mr Churchill exchanging naughty documents with Stalin, the Foundation announced an unprecedented plan to re-wild the savannahs of Kenya by deporting thirteen elephants from Britain, only for the descendants of the Mau Mau to drop an iron curtain in the way. Informed about the plans via Her Majesty's Government's official diplomatic channel, the Rothermere Daily Stürmer, the Kenyan government hastened to state that it had not been properly consulted and that re-wilding is neither simple nor cheap; while mere experts indulged their usual penchant for pettifoggery by noting that Kenya is not, for the moment, noticeably short of elephants. Faced with such a snub to its goodwill, the Aspinall Foundation confessed itself as perplexed as a philanthropist whose truckload of gratuitous watermelon has been refused by some London coloureds.